THIS refers to the recent woes of the Punjab Public Service Commission. Lately, it has become a habit of the PPSC not to proceed after advertising jobs. A recent example is the advertisement for the posts of tehsildar in BPS 16, for which examinations have not been conducted even after a year. The candidates also suffered a great deal earlier this year.

The PPSC in its premier examinations -- Provincial Management Services -- caused constant delays of more than a year that followed an acute mismanagement in conducting the same. The results of the written part for the same are yet awaited even after six months.

The point is that if the commission faces challenges in proceeding to conduct examinations after a job advertisement, which according to usual practice is three months after the closing date, it should duly inform the candidates.

The practice of painful delays not only deprives the applicants from a momentum, it also causes them to lose faith in the prestigious institution and meritocracy.

The relevant authorities must consider the agony of unemployed but educated youths who as a result suffer a great deal. I wish the PPSC was some kind of a passage which could be transformed by construction and digging with all kinds of strange machinery because that is all that seems to be the topmost priority nowadays.

ANWARUL HAQUE CHISHTI Lahore